Disney has paid $900 million to acquire the remaining 15% of streaming technology provider BAMTech that it didn’t own.
Earlier this month, Disney paid $900 million to Major League Baseball to buy out the league’s remaining 15% stake in BAMTech, the media conglomerate disclosed in an SEC filing Tuesday.
Disney and the sports league had the right to force a buyout of the stake based on its fair market value beginning earlier this year. Disney had bought the National Hockey League’s 10 percent stake in BAMTech for $350 million last year.
In 2016, Disney made a $1 billion investment in BAMTech, giving it a 33% stake, and then a year later paid an additional $1.58 billion to hold a 75% stake.
BAMTech technology powers Disney+, Hulu and Disney’s other offerings, and has become a critical part of the company’s streaming infrastructure.
The announcement of the BAMTech acquisition on the company’s August 2017 earnings call — coupled with the announcement of plans for ESPN and Disney-branded streaming services — was “the beginning of the reinvention of The Walt Disney Company,” then-CEO Bob Iger wrote in his memoir The Ride of a Lifetime.
